This invention relates to an electrical connector.
As an electrical connector for connecting surfaces of boards to each other, a board connector (board-to-board connector) has conventionally been used.
The board connector is in the form of a pair of a plug connector and a receptacle connector. The plug connector is inserted into the receptacle connector so that contact members of the connectors are brought into contact with each other, thereby establishing electrical connection therebetween.
The plug connector and the receptacle connector each comprise an insulating housing and conductive signal contacts held by the housing.
Herein, when an electrical connector is used as a power supply connector, power supply contacts may be provided in addition to signal contacts.
As the electrical connector having the power supply contacts, there is known, as described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2013-16410 (JP-A-2013-16410), a structure in which a plug connector and a receptacle connector each have connecting portions (mounting portions) for mounting to a board and a contact portion (contact point portion) for contact with a power supply contact of the mating connector and, by bringing the contact portions into contact with each other, the power supply contacts are electrically connected together.
On the other hand, in the above-mentioned structure, since there is the single contact portion, a power supply current is concentrated on this contact portion. Therefore, in order to prevent heat generation due to electrical conduction, a structure with a large current capacity, specifically, an increase in size of the contact, is required.
However, in recent years, board connectors have been widely applied to small terminals such as mobile telephones and thus miniaturization is required also for electrical connectors so that it is difficult to increase the size of power supply contacts.
In view of this, there is known, as described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2010-198996 (JP-A-2010-198996), a structure in which three contact portions are provided to divide a power supply current.
Specifically, as shown in FIG. 7, a first fixture 54 as a power supply terminal in JP-A-2010-198996 has one elastic piece 80 and two protruding projections 781 and thus has a total of three contact portions as portions for contact with a mating power supply contact.